The document has moved .

Urban Institute: Welfare
Urban Institute reports on: Welfare - The Urban Institute is a nonprofit nonpartisan policy research and educational organization established to examine the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation.

• Partners for Fragile Families Demonstration Projects : Employment and Child Support Outcomes and Trends
  The Partnership for Fragile Families Demonstration projects, operating in 13 sites across the country, provided a range of services aimed at increasing the capacity of young, economically disadvantaged fathers in becoming financial and emotional resources to their children and sought to reduce poverty and welfare dependence. As part of a multi-component evaluation, this report examines how participants fared in two key areas: (1) employment rates and earnings levels and (2) the establishment of child support orders and the payment of child support.
• Racial Disparities and the New Federalism
  The paper explores how shifts in both social welfare policies and economic conditions beginning in the mid-1990s altered the relative well-being of blacks compared to whitesbetween 1997 and 2002. It uses the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to assess how the relative well-being of black families improved or disparities persisted. The findings suggest that some of the disparities between whites and blacks narrowed between 1997 and 2002, especially among people with low incomes. But gaps in income, child school outcomes, employment, assets, and welfare and other income supports, remained essentially unchanged over the period.
• Lecture Series Honoring Paul Offner Launched by University of Wisconsin and Urban Institute
  Paul Offners legacy of applying good scholarship to public policy solutions, especially for societys disadvantaged, will be celebrated with a lecture series sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madisons La Follette School of Public Affairs in partnership with the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute.
• The Effects of Welfare and IDA Program Rules on the Asset Holdings of Low-Income Families
  This report examines the effects of a comprehensive set of 13 welfare, Food Stamp, individual development account (IDA), earned income tax credit (EITC), and minimum wage program rules on the asset holdings of low-education single mothers and families. This report finds empirical evidence that more lenient asset limits in means-tested programs and more generous IDA program rules may have positive effects on asset holdings of low-education single mothers and families.
• Assessing Asset Data on Low-Income Households: : Current Availability and Options for Improvement
  This report identifies the most reliable and informative data sources for understanding low-income households assets and liabilities, details their limitations, and provides options for improving asset data sources and collection methods. The report evaluates 12 data sets and identifies three as having the greatest potential for future asset researchthe Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
• Vulnerable Infants and Toddlers in Four Service Systems
  This brief compiles the best available data on the characteristics of vulnerable young children in four service systems: Early Head Start (EHS); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the child welfare (CW) system; and Part C Early Intervention Programs (Part C). Data reveal that the children and families in these systems look fairly similar on some key dimensions, suggesting that policy initiatives to support young children's development might be informed by distilling common lessons from the systems' different research bases.
• TANF Caseload Composition and Leavers Synthesis Report
  Since the passage of federal welfare reform in 1996, policy makers have been concerned about the well-being of families that have left welfare as well as those who have remained on the caseload. This report synthesizes the most up-to-date research about what is known about the composition of the TANF caseload and the status of TANF leavers, and how this has changed over time. This synthesis is supplemented by tabulations of data from the NSAF, SIPP and CPS on the demographics, economic situation, and barriers to work of current and former TANF recipients over time.
• Minnesota Integrated Services Project : Participant Characteristics and Program Implementation
  The Minnesota Integrated Services Projects focus on improving the delivery of employment, health, and social services to families who receive cash assistance and have serious or multiple barriers to employment. Operating in eight sites, the project seeks to provide comprehensive assessments of participants' barriers, improve access to more complete services that address multiple needs, and coordinate services provided by multiple service systems. This report examines the implementation of the projects, provides information on participants' demographic, economic and barrier-related characteristics, and describes changes in economic outcomes among participants within a short (six-month) follow-up period.
• Vouchers for Housing and Child Care : Common Challenges and Emerging Strategies
  Vouchers play an important role in federal efforts to help low-income families obtain both housing and child care. These programs constitute essential components of the promise of welfare reform to encourage and support work among low-income families. And both types of vouchers have the potential to enhance long-term outcomes for children. Although federal housing and child care voucher programs differ in important respects, they also face common challenges, and innovations in one area can potentially inform efforts in the other. This brief highlights promising strategies for tackling challenges to the success of child care and housing vouchers.
• Building Skills and Promoting Job Advancement : The Promise of Employer-Focused Strategies
  While many skill-upgrade initiatives are based in the public or private education system, efforts where businesses sponsor or play a lead role in developing training also provide an important venue for skill building. This paper examines why employer-focused training is a promising strategy for boosting the earnings of low-income individuals while also providing benefits to employers. Three employer-focused models with potential for improving skills and promoting job advancement among low-wage workers are examined: incumbent worker training programs, sectoral training programs, and career ladder programs.
• Low-Wage Workers with Children Face Difficulties Gaining Ground
  About one in 20 workers age 18 to 61, some 7 million men and women, earn low wages and live in low-income families with children. New analyses by Urban Institute researchers address ways the private and public sectors can support working families and, at the same time, encourage productivity and organizational competitiveness; what supports to provide low-income workers; and public policy's role in encouraging or mandating stronger private-sector involvement.
• Mental Health, Work and Mental Health Service Use among Low-Income Mothers
  This paper analyzes how mental health problems impede low-income mothers' ability to work and how health insurance improves access to mental health treatment services. According to data from the 2002 National Survey of America's Families, low-income mothers in poor mental health are significantly less likely to work and to work full time than those without these problems. Low-income mothers with public or private health insurance are significantly more likely to receive treatment than those without insurance. Mental health problems are an important barrier to work among low-income women, and access to treatment could be improved through increased health insurance coverage.
• Helping Women Stay Off Welfare : The Role of Post-Exit Receipt of Work Supports
  This paper assesses the role of work support programs (specifically, food stamps and Medicaid) and other factors in reducing welfare reentry and promoting stable employment among women exiting the TANF program. Using data from the 1996 and 2001 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the paper finds that welfare leavers who use food stamps as a transitional support when they leave TANF are less likely to return to TANF and more likely to be stably employed (for the year after exit) than women who do not receive food stamps when they exit welfare.
• Voices of Young Fathers : The Partners for Fragile Familes Demonstration
  This report presents ethnographic case studies of eight young, unmar